A popular image of the British Army throughout
the many centuries of its long history is that of the infantryman dressed in the infamous
‘red coat’. The famous crimson military uniform was used
for a long time and its use has even continued up until the modern day. One of the many units to don it in a ceremonial
fashion is the Coldstream Guards, a formation that can rightly be declared as Britain’s
most iconic. But what events brought the UK’s oldest
army regiment into existence? Welcome to our video on the Coldstream Guard
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code “KINGSANDGENERALS”! Located on the northern bank of the River
Tweed, near a bend in the watercourse, the quaint 2,000 person strong Scottish town of
Coldstream straddles the border between England and Scotland. The Coldstream Community Trust asserts that
the town is ‘a gateway to the Scottish borders’, and that is a view that has been widely regarded
for centuries. What would otherwise just be an ordinary town
has instead seen the boots of countless English armies march through it, the crossing being
used as an invasion route into Scotland. It was events revolving around this picturesque,
drowsy settlement on the Scottish side of the border which would eventually give the
eponymous military unit its name. However, the gathering of soldiers who would
eventually become the Coldstream Guard was done elsewhere during the English Civil War,
one of the most tumultuous times in British history. When Charles I raised his banner at Nottingham
in August 1622, consequently triggering the outbreak of war, prominent nobles, officers,
and soldiers across the land were forced to choose sides. Would they support parliament or the king? One of the men who opted to back Charles was
George Monck - a lifelong soldier in his mid-thirties. The second son of a staunchly royalist member
of parliament, young George was born and grew up near Torrington in Devon. The brazen youth assaulted a sheriff in his
mid-teens and had to go abroad to escape the consequences, becoming a soldier at the age
of sixteen. Monck’s military career began in the late
1620s with service in the Spanish army, followed by almost a decade of soldiering in the wartorn
Netherlands. By all accounts, the young officer gained
a reputation amongst his troops for bravery, exceptional leadership skills, and harsh but
fair disciplinarian methods. However, after a disagreement with his employers,
Monck resigned his commission abroad and returned to England as a seasoned veteran in 1638. The newly returned man of experience was quickly
appointed as Lieutenant-Colonel of a royal regiment. As tensions throughout the British Isles began
to increase during the late 1630s, Monck showed off his considerable military prowess despite
the odds being against him. During the Bishops’ Wars, he managed to
save the vulnerable English artillery after the disaster at Newburn, and succinctly criticised
the king’s approach to the Irish Rebellion long after. When the day came on which George Monck was
forced to make the fatal choice, he decided to fight on the royalist side, probably at
least partially because of his father’s firm loyalties to the crown. The war heated up later in 1642, but Monck
was dispatched to Ireland to battle the Parliamentarians. Once again he fought with great skill, but
declining royalist fortunes in 1644 led to Monck being taken prisoner by a Yorkshire
regiment after the royalist defeat at the Battle of Nantwich. He was then imprisoned in the Tower of London,
but rather than sitting idle, he used the couple years of spare time to write a military
treatise known as “Observations upon Military and Political Matters”. Such extensive knowledge in both the strategic
and tactical elements of war drew the gaze of a Parliamentary commander who was quickly
rising to prominence as time went on. That man was Oliver Cromwell, Lieutenant-General
of the vaunted New Model Army, and its most influential political leader. Always in need of competent military officers
and intolerant of waste, Cromwell approached Monck with an offer he could hardly refuse. The ex-royalist would be released from prison
if he joined the New Model Army and served in its upcoming Irish campaign. Forced to choose, Monck agreed to change sides. The newly ranked Monck went off to Ireland
with Cromwell and once again served with considerable distinction, this time by commanding parliamentary
forces in Ulster. Monck impressed Cromwell so much he was given
his very own command and received a regiment from Yorkshire. However, after being told just who their new
commander was, the Yorkshiremen rioted. Monck and Cromwell looked more deeply into
this and it turned out that this was the very unit that had captured Monck at Nantwich. The solution was actually quite a simple one
- to form an entirely new regiment. While simple, it was a solution that showed
just how eager Cromwell was to get Monck into a position of leadership as soon as possible. In August 1650, somewhere in the vicinity
of a Northumberland town called Morpeth, five companies of infantry, each from the regiments
of Sir Arthur Hazlerigg and Colonel Fenwick, were taken and meshed together to form ‘Monck’s
Regiment of Foot’, the formation which would later become the famous Coldstream Guard. Soon after, Cromwell’s 16,000 strong-army,
along with Monck, preemptively invaded Scotland. The northern kingdom had taken the young Charles
II as their king and wished to use the would-be English king to impose universal Presbyterianism
when he regained the throne. After weeks of maneuvering around one another,
the Scots finally cornered Cromwell’s force near Dunbar in early September, but he was
still confident. Forming up in a column with Monck and his
foot in the vanguard, the English army smashed the Scottish units in front of them with incredible
skill. The colonel personally led his regiment at
the very front, advancing with a half-pike in hand. The Parliamentarians won a crushing victory,
destroying the Scottish potential for waging war. After Dunbar - the greatest of his victories
- Cromwell had a unique medal created for all of the officers and soldiers who had taken
part. George Monck’s regiment received the honour
as well, and is the only surviving unit in the British Army to have been awarded it. The Dunbar Medal belonging to this regiment
currently resides in the Guards Museum at Wellington Barracks. When Cromwell marched south, he left Monck
in charge of the 6,000 men, and his accompanying regiment left to subdue all of Scotland for
parliament. The colonel didn’t disappoint his benefactor
and brought all of the country except the far highlands under control. In March 1652 however, Monck was taken ill
and returned to England for a while. He recovered relatively quickly and assisted
Cromwell in military matters for the latter’s remaining ‘reign’ as Lord Protector, commanding
ships during the Anglo-Dutch War of 1652 to 1654, and suppressing further uprisings in
Scotland after he returned. While Monck spent years in the north subduing
the always-fiery Scots, the political situation was degenerating down in England. On September 3rd 1658, Oliver Cromwell died
and was succeeded by his son Richard, whose skill in governance and generalship were but
a pale shadow of his father’s. The inevitable result of such a sudden power
vacuum was that England began to slide back into civil strife once again. The Commonwealth, nominally under the younger
Cromwell, was under the de facto control of a series of disliked military commanders known
as the ‘Major Generals’, while the technically more democratic Rump Parliament was widely
regarded as ineffective. All of a sudden, by luck more than anything
else, Monck found himself in a position of considerable influence. Isolated up in Scotland and far, far away
from any political backbiting in the capital, he was insulated from the turmoil which was
starting to engulf England, but also had a powerful army under his leadership. With confidence in the loyalty of his soldiers
and officers, Monck decided to remain where he was in Scotland, waiting on events. He didn’t have to wait long. In October 1659, two of Richard Cromwell’s
‘Major Generals’ - Charles Fleetwood and John Lambert - marched on London and deposed
the vestigial parliament by force. Regardless of its ineffectiveness, Monck was
opposed to such a military coup by principle, and made no secret of the fact, writing to
the Lord Mayor of London in November, saying: “I take god to witness that I have no other
end than to restore parliament to its former freedom and authority, and the people to their
just rights and liberties.” The next month’s events accelerated matters
significantly. In December, the military ‘junta’ in London
issued an order to Monck requiring that he and his officers sign a treaty of loyalty
to them, in the form of a commitment to the ‘Commonwealth’. Unwilling to capitulate to that demand, Monck
called a grand officers’ council in which all his subordinates present “swore to live
and die with their general.” Then, in order to position himself adequately
to act in England if it was deemed to be necessary, the roughly 7,000 strong army in Scotland
was moved by Monck from its headquarters at Berwick-upon-Tweed to the sleepy town of Coldstream. The presence of so many soldiers strained
the local population and its provisions to the breaking point, and there was only just
enough food for everyone. That wasn’t the only issue. Such a small town only had limited accommodation,
and it is said that the soldiers in Monck’s army suffered plenty of discomfort through
the winter months. Monck himself wasn’t exempt from this period’s
privations, suffering similar varieties of discomfort and deprivation as his troops. Writing about life in Coldstream at the time,
Monck’s personal chaplain - Thomas Gumble - stated: “The general’s ‘palace’
was a little smoky cottage that had two great dunghills at the door, a hall or entry so
dark and narrow as a man could not turn in it; the rooms were worse than I can describe…” While hunkered down at Coldstream, the colonel
simply observed developments in the south and received many delegates of causes which
differed widely from one another. Monck didn’t give away his own intentions
to anyone, simply content to react to whatever would happen next. In response to a massive buildup of public
pressure, Cromwell Jr backed down and recalled parliament on December 26th. The moment Monck heard of this up in Coldstream,
he gave the famous order for 6,000 of his soldiers, including his personal foot regiment,
to march south onto London. The army set out on January 2nd 1660 and reached
Morpeth - the place where the regiment had been created - only two days later. On his way south, Monck passed through Newcastle,
Durham, York, Nottingham, Leicester and other prominent English cities, meeting a jubilant
liberator’s reception all the way. Despite this ever-increasing and seemingly
overwhelming public support however, Monck kept his cards close to the chest. Finally, on the third day of the second month,
the 6,000 strong army reached London and entered the city limits. The general settled down and made Whitehall
his quarters, while his regiment’s troops were billeted in and around St James’ Palace. Having just imposed himself on London with
a few thousand armed men, Monck immediately became a pivotal figure in determining where
events would go. He was immediately disdainful of how far the
Rump Parliament had fallen. Only four days after arriving in the city,
the general addressed the house of commons and essentially told them that England was
sick of them. Therefore, it was necessary to replace the
members of the rump with something fresh for the common good. Nevertheless, Monck acknowledged that this
20 year-long parliament could only dissolve itself. He was therefore bound to obey when it ordered
him to destroy the City of London’s gates, because its common council had refused to
pay taxes, buoyed by Monck’s presence. When the distasteful task was half done, with
no sign of any concessions from either side, the senior officers in Monck’s regiment
approached their general, declaring that they hadn’t marched so far to make themselves
“Odious to the whole nation.”. Reluctantly, they threatened to resign if
Monck continued to obey a parliament which they and he both considered to be utterly
defunct. With this justification obtained, the general
marched his entire army back into the city to support the people and the common council
against the rump. A few days later, he wrote a formal letter
to parliament demanding their final dissolution, which was finally accomplished on March 16th
1660, bringing a conclusion to a sorrowful two-decade episode in British history. Free elections were subsequently held in April
to elect a new body of representatives, and unsurprisingly the popular Monck won a seat. One of the very first acts passed by this
new, freely elected parliament was to vote for a measure which had become increasingly
popular as of the past few months - restoring England’s Stuart monarchy - which had been
scythed away by the Civil War more than a decade earlier. After all of the minute details had been sorted
out, King Charles II was welcomed by General Monck at Dover in late May. As the restorer and kingmaker, Monck was rewarded
exceedingly handsomely for his services. He was granted the Order of the Garter, a
great honour not only because he was technically born a non-aristocrat, but because he personally
received the ribbon from the monarch himself, rather than the more standard proxy. In addition, Monck was raised to the status
of Duke of Albemarle and appointed Lord General of the infantry. Along with their commander, Monck’s Regiment
of Foot now became titled either ‘The Lord General’s Regiment’ or ‘The Duke of
Albemarle’s Regiment’. Their symbol also became the Order of the
Garter’s iconic star, and has remained so ever since. Now that the monarchy was here to stay, it
was clear that the established roundhead-created order of the late 1640s and 1650s could not
remain wholly intact - there were too many hostile parties and loose ends for that. Front and center in the new king’s sights
were the New Model Army, the regiments of which had been radically anti-royalist throughout
the civil war and whose loyalty could now not be assured. Though this was the case, Charles liked the
idea of a standing army, and wanted to maintain one for his own uses, but without all of the
extra baggage Cromwell’s New Model would burden him with. Unfortunately for him, the so-called ‘convention
parliament’, with the great civil war still a recent and bitter memory, refused to let
any form of military power accrue in the monarch’s hands. Therefore, on August 26th 1660, parliament
voted to disband the entire New Model Army, including Monck’s two regiments of foot
and horse. There was to be only one symbolic concession. For their services to the King of England,
Monck’s regiments would be the last to be disbanded in their entirety. Little known at the time, this ‘symbolic’
gesture was actually to have far-reaching practical impacts. After most of the army had been gotten rid
of, but two days before Monck’s regiments were due to lay down their arms, a small extremist
religious faction, led by a wine merchant called Thomas Venner, took up weapons and
launched a revolt against both king and parliament. He and as many as a hundred supporters rampaged
throughout London for days, with the local militia unable to deal with them. With little other option, parliament hesitantly
called on Monck’s personal units to deal with the crisis. Supported by some of the king’s own personal
guard, the small revolt was quickly put down, but the outbreak of minor violence did prove
a couple of things to parliament. Firstly - England did have a legitimate need
for a professional standing army. Secondly - Monck’s regiments, in particular,
were loyal, reliable and too valuable to lose. A writ annulling the dissolution of Monck’s
regiments was issued and, on January 26th 1661, Charles II signed a royal warrant sanctioning
the creation of a standing army with them at its core. Although its purpose was already accomplished,
parliament’s previous act of disbandment was technically still in effect and had to
be formally obeyed. So, on February 14th 1661, both Monck’s
infantry and cavalry regiment paraded at Tower Hill in full uniform and regalia, symbolically
laying down their arms as formations of the New Model Army. However, the soldiers were then immediately
ordered to bear their weapons again as troops in their monarch’s new standing army. They fought a number of actions in the following
decade, but at the very start of 1670, General Monck passed away at the age of 62. From this point, Monck’s regiment, granted
to him by Oliver Cromwell over two decades before, was granted the prestigious official
title of “His Majesty’s Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards.” That name, granted to them for the town in
which they stayed during that cold winter of 1659/1660, has survived for over three
centuries and persists to this day. We are going to talk about more elite regiments
around the world throughout history, so make sure you are subscribed to our channel and
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